The DC Cinematic Universe (Alternate)
MAN OF STEEL The planet Krypton faces imminent destruction due to its unstable core, the result of depleting Krypton's natural resources. The ruling council is deposed by the planet's military commander, General Zod, and his followers during a coup d'état. Knowing that artificial population control and isolationism have ruined their civilization, scientistJor-El and his wife Lara launch their newborn son, Kal-El, the first naturally born Kryptonian child in centuries, on a spacecraft to Earth after infusing his cells with a genetic codex of the entire Kryptonian race. After Zod kills Jor-El, he and his followers are captured and exiled to the Phantom Zone. However, they are indirectly freed after Krypton explodes. Kal-El's ship lands in Smallville, a small town in Kansas. He is raised as the adopted son of Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark. Clark's Kryptonian physiology affords him superhuman abilities on Earth, much to his confusion. Despite his isolation from the community, he eventually uses his powers to help others. After revealing to a teenage Clark that he is an extraterrestrial, Jonathan reveals his concern about social rejection and forewarns him not to use his powers in public. Several years later, Jonathan dies in a tornado while refusing to let Clark use his powers to save him. After Jonathan's death, an adult Clark spends several years living a nomadic lifestyle, working different jobs under assumed identities, anonymously performing good deeds, and struggling to cope with the loss of his adoptive father. Clark eventually infiltrates a U.S. military investigation of a Kryptonian scout spaceship in the Canadian Arctic. When Clark enters the alien ship, he uses a Kryptonian "control-key" from the ship that brought him to Earth, which allows him to communicate with the preserved consciousness of Jor-El in the form of a hologram. Jor-El reveals Clark's origins, the extinction of his race, and tells Clark that he was sent to Earth to bring hope to mankind for a better future. Lois Lane, a journalist from the''Daily Planet'' newspaper who was sent to write a story on the discovery, sneaks inside the ship while following Clark and is rescued by him when she is injured by its security system. Lois' editor, Perry White, rejects her story of a "superhuman" rescuer, so she traces Clark back to Kansas with the intention of writing an exposé. After hearing his story, however, she decides not to reveal his secret. Meanwhile, Zod and his crew seek out other worlds that the Kryptonian race colonized long ago, only to find out that none of the outposts survived after Krypton abandoned them. Zod and the others eventually pick up a Kryptonian distress signal sent from the ship Clark discovered on Earth. Zod arrives and demands that the humans surrender Kal-El, whom he believes has the codex, or else Earth will be destroyed. Clark accepts, and the military hand him and Lois over to Zod's second-in-command, Faora, at Zod's request. Zod reveals that he intends to use a terraforming "world engine" to transform Earth into a new Krypton and use the codex to repopulate the planet with genetically-engineered Kryptonians, killing Earth's indigenous life in the process. Clark and Lois escape Zod's ship with Jor-El's help, Clark defeats Faora and another Kryptonian, and convinces the military that he is an ally. Zod deploys the world engine and initiates the process inMetropolis and over the southern Indian Ocean, increasing the Earth's mass and atmosphere. Clark, now called "Superman", destroys the world engine, while the military uses the spacecraft that brought him to Earth in an aerial strike on Zod's ship over Metropolis, sending Zod's forces back into the Phantom Zone. Zod survives and engages Superman in a destructive battle across Metropolis using his newly developed powers. When Zod attempts to murder cornered civilians as revenge for his defeat, Superman is forced to kill him. Some time later, Superman warns the government that, if they want his help, it will be on his terms. To create an alias that gives him access to dangerous situations without arousing suspicion, Clark takes a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet. BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, gangster Chuckie Sol is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure, shortly after Batman bursts in on the meeting. Due to the killer's resemblance to Batman, the Dark Knight is blamed for Sol's death. Councilman Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is a public menace (despite Commissioner Gordon's protests), then later attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman's secret identity. Reeves teases Bruce about his bad luck with women and for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont, to get away. In a flashback to 10 years before, Bruce meets Andrea in a cemetery while visiting his parents' grave. That night, in one of his first crime-fighting attempts, Bruce foils an armored car robbery while disguised in a black ski-mask and leather jacket. Though he succeeds, he is discouraged that the criminals did not fear him. Around the same time, he begins a romance with Andrea. Eventually, Bruce decides to abandon his plan to become a crime-fighting vigilante and proposes marriage to Andrea. Soon afterward, however, Andrea mysteriously leaves Gotham with her father, Carl Beaumont, ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John letter. Believing that he has lost his last chance of having a normal life, Bruce dons the mask of Batman for the first time. The mysterious killer finds and murders another gangster, Buzz Bronski. Around the same time, Batman discovers that Andrea has returned to Gotham for the first time in 10 years, and she ends up finding out that Bruce is Batman. Batman soon finds evidence linking Andrea's father with gangster Salvatore Valestra, for whom both Sol and Bronski once worked as enforcers. When he visits Andrea to get more answers, she rebuffs him and only tells him that she and her father ran away to escape the debt he owed Valestra's gang. The killer later targets Valestra, who turns to the Joker for help. The killer arrives at Valestra's house, and finds the gangster already dead at the Joker's hands; the house explodes, with the killer barely escaping. Batman pursues the killer, but is interrupted by the police, who believe that Batman is responsible for the murders. Andrea rescues Batman in her car, and they spend the night together at Wayne Manor. Andrea explains to Bruce that she and her father had been hiding in Europe from the Valestra mob, to whom he owed a lot of money. Batman comes to suspect that Andrea's father may be the killer, but later gets Reeves (who was told of Batman's innocence by the Joker before being poisoned by him, as he believed the Councilman to be the killer) to confess that he told the Valestra mob where Beaumont was hiding in return for campaign contributions, and that the mob ordered Beaumont's death. The killer tracks the Joker to his hideout — an abandoned world's fair amusement park — and removes its ominous costume: the killer is Andrea, intent on avenging her father's death at the hands of the Joker, who is revealed to be the last surviving member and professional hitman of the Valestra mob. Having already deduced her identity, and is ready for her attack, the Joker fights her. Just before he can kill Andrea, Batman arrives and saves her from the Joker, and begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge. She refuses, stating that the mob ruined her life by taking away her future with him; she tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge before disappearing. Batman battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in stalemate. Moments later, Andrea returns and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the maniacally laughing clown in a cloud of smoke as the entire amusement park erupts in a series of rigged explosions. Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current. Alfred later consoles a heartbroken Bruce, telling him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea left behind in the Batcave. Meanwhile, Andrea is shown standing alone on the deck of a departing ocean liner. In the final scene, Batman stands alone on the top of a Gotham building; when the Bat-Signal appears in the sky, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime. GREEN LANTERN Billions of years ago, beings called the Guardians of the Universe used the green essence of willpower to create an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. They divided the universe into 3600 sectors, with one Green Lantern per sector. One such Green Lantern, Abin Sur of Sector 2814, defeated the malevolent being Parallax and imprisoned him in the Lost Sector on the desolate planet Ryut. In the present day, Parallax escapes from his prison after becoming strengthened by an encounter with crash survivors on the planet. Parallax then pursues and nearly kills Abin Sur, who escapes and crash-lands on Earth where he commands his ring to find a worthy successor. Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot working at Ferris Aircraft, is chosen by the ring and transported to the crash site, where the dying Abin Sur appoints him a Green Lantern, telling him to take the lantern and speak the oath. At home he says the oath and is later whisked away to the Green Lantern Corps home planet of Oa, where he meets and trains with Tomar-Re and Kilowog and Corps leader Sinestro, who believes he is unfit and fearful. Jordan quits and returns to Earth, keeping the power ring and lantern. Meanwhile, scientist Hector Hammond is summoned by his father, Senator Robert Hammond, to a secret government facility to perform an autopsy on Abin Sur's body. A piece of Parallax inside the corpse enters Hammond, giving him telepathic and telekinetic powers, at the cost of his sanity. After discovering that he was chosen for the secret work only due to his father's influence, Hammond attempts to kill his father by telekinetically sabotaging his helicopter at a party. Jordan saves the senator and the party guests, including his childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris. Later, Hammond successfully kills his father by burning him alive, and Jordan learns of Parallax coming to Earth. Back on Oa, the Guardians tell Sinestro that Parallax was once one of their own until he desired to control the yellow essence of fear, only to become the embodiment of fear itself. Arguing that the way to fight fear is by fear itself, Sinestro requests that the Guardians forge a ring of the same yellow power, preparing to concede Earth's destruction to Parallax in order to protect Oa. Jordan appears and tries to convince the Guardians that fear will turn the users evil if its power is used, but they reject his pleas, and he returns to Earth to try to defeat Parallax alone feeling defeated. Upon returning to Earth, Jordan saves Ferris from Hammond. Parallax arrives, consumes Hammond's life force, and then wreaks havoc on Coast City. With new-found strength, Jordan lures Parallax away from Earth and toward the Sun, destroying and killing Parallax. He loses consciousness after the battle and falls toward the sun, but is saved by Sinestro, Kilowog, and Tomar-Re. Later the entire Green Lantern Corps congratulates him for his bravery. Sinestro tells Jordan he now bears the responsibility of protecting his sector as a Green Lantern. In the epilogue, Sinestro steals the yellow ring and places it on his finger, causing his green suit and eyes to change to yellow. THE FLASH WONDER WOMAN Centuries ago, the Amazons, a proud and fierce race of warrior women, led by their Queen, Hippolyta (voiced by Virginia Madsen), battled Ares (voiced by Alfred Molina), the god of war, and his army. During the battle, Hippolyta beheaded her son, Thrax (voiced by Jason Miller), whom Ares forcibly conceived with her, who is fighting for his father. Hippolyta then defeated Ares, but Zeus (voiced by David McCallum) stopped her from delivering the death strike. Instead, Hera (voiced by Marg Helgenberger) bound his powers with magic bracers so that he was deprived of his ability to draw power from the aura of violence and death he could instigate, effectively rendering him mortal, and only another god could release him. In compensation, the Amazons were granted the island of Themyscira, where they would remain eternally youthful and isolated from Man in the course of their duty of holding Ares prisoner for all eternity. Later, Hippolyta was granted a daughter, Princess Diana (voiced by Keri Russell), whom she shaped from the sand of the Themyscirian seashore and gave life with her own blood. Over a millennium later, an American fighter pilot, USAF Colonel Steve Trevor (voiced by Nathan Fillion), is shot down in a dogfight and crash-lands on the island, where he soon runs afoul of the Amazon population, including the warlike, aggressive Artemis (voiced by Rosario Dawson). Steve and Diana meet and fight, and she defeats him, taking him to the Amazons. After interrogating him with the use of the Amazons' golden lasso, Hippolyta decides he is not an enemy of the Amazons and as such, tradition dictates that an emissary be tasked to ensure his safe return to his own country. Diana volunteers, but is assigned to guard Ares's cell instead since her mother argues that she has not enough experience in dealing with the dangers of the outside world. Diana defies her mother and, her face hidden by a helmet and her guard duty covered by her bookish but kind-hearted Amazon sister Alexa (voiced by Tara Strong), participates in contests of strength and wins the right to take Trevor back to his home. In the meantime, the Amazon Persephone (voiced by Vicki Lewis), who has been gradually seduced by Ares, kills Alexa and releases him. With the additional task of capturing Ares, Diana brings Trevor to New York City, where he volunteers to help Diana on her quest. An investigation uncovers a pattern of violence created by Ares presence that will lead to him given time, and the pair goes out to a bar while they wait. After some heavy drinking, Trevor makes a pass at Diana. They argue outside, but are attacked first by thugs and then the demigod Deimos (voiced by John DiMaggio). Deimos kills himself to prevent being interrogated, but Diana and Steve find a clue on his body that leads them to a concealed gateway to the underworld guarded by members of a still-extant ancient cult of Ares. Once there, Diana attempts to subdue Ares, but he summons harpies that knock her unconscious, prompting Trevor to save her instead of stopping Ares. Meanwhile, Ares performs a sacrifice to open a gate to the Underworld where he persuades his uncle Hades (voiced by Oliver Platt) to remove the bracers, though Hades does not tell Ares that the ultimate cost of removing the bracers would be Ares' own death in combat. Later, Diana regains consciousness in a hospital and is furious that Trevor saved her rather than stop Ares. Trevor argues against her abuse with his own criticism of the Amazons' self-imposed isolation and their generalizations about men, and reveals how much he cares about her. Ares and his army attack Washington, DC. Trevor and Diana arrive to battle Ares and are soon joined by the Amazons. While Ares manages even to summon the Amazons long dead from the Underworld to fight their own sisters, his scheme is stopped by Alexa, a member of the undead host, who reveals to Artemis a chant which nullifies Ares's control over them. The undead then turn on Ares but are destroyed by his powers. Hippolyta faces Persephone in combat and kills her, but in her dying breath, Persephone makes the queen realize that in shutting the Amazons away from the world of men, she has denied them the chance to live their lives as women. Meanwhile, the President of the U.S.A. (voiced by Rick Overton) is influenced by Ares's power and orders a nuclear missile against Themyscira, presuming the island nation to be the source of the attack on Washington. This act of supreme aggression increases Ares's power, but Trevor takes the invisible jet and shoots down the missile just before it hits the island. Finally, after a brutal beating at Ares's hands, Diana finally outwits and kills him. As Trevor arrives back at the scene, Diana finally accepts him, as the two share a kiss, and the crowd of Amazons begin cheering. Subsequently, Ares is condemned to the underworld to attend Hades as a slave alongside his son. Later on Themyscira, in memory of Alexa, Artemis takes up the hobby of reading (with severe difficulty). Hippolyta realizes that Diana misses both the outside world and Trevor, and to make her happy again, she gives her daughter the task of being a channel for 'communication between men and women'. Diana accepts and returns to New York, where she enjoys the company of Trevor. Their relationship comes with the understanding of her larger duties, such as when Diana sees Cheetah robbing a museum and she excuses herself to stop the supervillainess as the newly christened Wonder Woman. JUSTICE LEAGUE Two astronauts explore the terrain of Mars. One stumbles onto the entrance to an underground cavern, at the end of which is a massive, ornate door. He wedges his pickaxe into the door's lock, and forces it open. The doors open, and something massive rushes out, reaching for him... Two years later: Batman makes a brief trip to the outskirts of Metropolis, spying on a satellite communications facility operated by Wayne Tech. As he watches, three employees of the facility exchange amiable good-byes with their co-workers, but as soon as they are alone, begin conversing in an alien language and tampering with the equipment. Batman appears and attempts to subdue them, but each of them fight back with amazing speed and strength. Batman corners one on top of the roof dish, but it turns the tables on him. Then Superman arrives and sends it running. Before they can deal with them, Superman sees strange images in mind and is rendered unconscious. Batman grabs him as the three mysterious scientists detonate the satellite. As Batman sees the three scientists, their bodies are twisted into positions that should be fatal, but they are still alive and flee into the forest. The two heroes share a reserved greeting; two years after Darkseid's brainwashing, Superman has regained the majority of the world's trust, but wonders if Batman is still in the minority. Batman explains that this station is the latest in a series that has been sending strange encrypted signals into space. Superman offers his help, but Batman declines. Superman hands him a communicator to use in case he needs help; Batman is skeptical, but places it in his ultility belt and keeps it anyway. In the nation's capital, J. Allen Carter, one of the two astronauts from the Mars expedition and now a U.S. Senator, proposes a bold plan for total nuclear disarmament. He champions Superman as Earth's protector, believing that the Man of Steel is both reliable and more than capable of handing any threat to the Earth. Superman embraces the idea, despite protests from the military and other sources. These even include other heroes, such as Central City's The Flash, who remarks: "I'm the fastest man alive, and even I can't be in five places at once". As Superman works to disarm the world's nuclear weapons, Batman continues his investigation. He traces the three fake scientists to a warehouse in Metropolis, where he discovers the three real scientists, unconscious, inside alien-looking containers. Then a guard dog appears, which turns out to be an alien creature, and attacks. Batman is outmatched, and calls for help. Superman arrives, and manages to save Batman, but then both of them watch as a meteor comes down from the sky and crashes into the heart of Metropolis. From the crater, a massive alien vehicle appears, and without preamble makes its hostility clear: it begins attacking the police and fire units nearby. More meteors crash, giving rise to more vehicles. Superman and Batman throw everything they have at the creatures, but seemingly to no avail. While preparing to fight again, Superman suffers another psychic migraine; entranced, he flies away. The world goes into a panic about the new alien invasion, and the apparent absence of Superman. OnThemyscira, Princess Diana notices signs of trouble in the outside world, but her mother, Queen Hippolyta, tells her that it is none of their concern, as the Gods protect Themyscira. Batman flies after Superman, tracking him to a U.S. Army base. Inside, they find a green-skinned alien being held prisoner inside. Freed, the alien introduces himself as J'onn J'onzz. Before he can tell his story, the trio are confronted by a group of army soldiers. Superman tries to explain, but soon the soldiers morph into white-skinned aliens and aim their weapons at the trio. On Themyscira, Diana enters the Temple of Athena, and prays her mother's forgiveness. She picks up a set of armor laid at the altar and puts it on... At the military base, Superman, Batman, and J'onn flee the scene, with their attackers close behind. Taking to the air, they find themselves pursued by swarms of flying craft. Although they manage to down some, theBatwing is critically damaged, and nearly crashes; however, Batman is saved and the fighters are driven off by the timely arrival of four more heroes: Green Lantern/ John Stewart, Hawkgirl of Thanagar, Princess Diana, and the Flash. J'onn explains: The aliens invaded Mars a thousand years ago, all but wiping out J'onn's people, and absorbing their telepathic and shape-changing abilities. J'onn was the lone survivor of a strike mission that incapacitated the invaders, and he sealed them away in an underground chamber five hundred years ago. Unfortunately, the astronauts released them while J'onn was hibernating. J'onn came to Earth to warn them, but was captured on arrival by the aliens. Instead, he used his partially-blocked telepathic powers to summon the heroes together. Unfortunately, the nerve gas which the Martians used to incapacitate the aliens before is made from a now-extinct Martian plant, and cannot be reproduced. With their presence on Earth established, the aliens set up enormous factories that project an ionizing field into the atmosphere, creating a cloud cover that shrouds the entire planet. J'onn explains that the invaders are nocturnal, wishing to block out the sun, and the heroes agree that the factories should be investigated and destroyed. Unused to working together, but resolved, the heroes split into three groups to destroy a factory each. Superman and Hawkgirl head to Metropolis, but are captured. Flash and Green Lantern attack another, but are forced to retreat; J'onn, Diana, and Batman attack a third. While inside, Batman discovers that the aliens are vulnerable to the sun's rays, which is why they are creating the cloud cover. They also manage to steal the crystal powering the factory. Then the trio is attacked, and J'onn and Diana escape, but Batman, who stays behind to hold them off, is cut off and apparently killed. The four remaining heroes regroup in Metropolis and prepare to free Hawkgirl and Superman. J'onn warns that they do not have much time, as the Imperium — the leader of the Invaders — will be arriving soon. While Flash creates a diversion, J'onn, Diana, and Green Lantern breach the facility. Managing to fight off the aliens, they find Superman and Hawkgirl in a holding cell, but it's a trap. The two heroes are actually aliens in disguise, and the rest of the heroes are captured. As the six heroes are held captive, they are shocked to see Senator Carter appear alongside their captors. It turns out that Carter is actually an alien in disguise; the real Carter perished on Mars. Using his persona, the aliens learned as much as possible about Earth's defenses, and also tricked humans into disarming their most powerful weapons. With no effective obstacles to their invasion left, the aliens signal a mothership orbiting the Earth, and receive their leader, the Imperium. The Imperium remembers J'onn, and begins to torture him. The Imperium calls on J'onn to surrender, saying that he has finally lost, but J'onn lets slip that he still has a plan. Then Batman appears, surprising everyone. J'onn explains that he telepathically shielded Batman from detection until then. Batman has used the time to sabotage the ion crystal, reversing the field's polarity. The clouds part, and the sun shines through the opening in the factory's roof. Exposed to the sun, the aliens begin to burn and die. Batman explains that the aliens have no resistance to ultraviolet radiation, as he helps to free Diana. Superman frees himself via his heat vision, then frees Hawkgirl, who frees John, then Diana frees Flash. Afterwards, they all engage in combat with the aliens, while smashing large holes in the roof to kill off the remaining aliens. The Imperium, its skin blistering grapples with J'onn, then hastily retreats back into its shuttle, leaving the Carter doppelganger to die, and makes for the mother ship. However, Diana lassoes the shuttle, which Hawkgirl further damages with her mace, and swings it into the factory, destroying both it and the Imperium. The other heroes quickly evacuate the captured humans being held there, before the factory explodes. The mother ship flees into space. Earth rejoices over the repulse of the invasion, but several skeptics, including General Wells, warn that they got lucky; if the aliens or a similar threat return, the Earth has no means of advance warning. Watching the report, Batman ponders this remark... A short time later, the heroes assemble aboard a large space station orbiting the Earth, built and launched in secret by Wayne Enterprises. The station will provide advance warning in case of another invasion. Superman addresses the assembled heroes, saying that the invasion has proved to him that even he isn't powerful enough to safeguard the Earth by himself. He proposes the formation of the Justice League. Four of the other heroes agree (in his or her own way); Batman, used to operating solo, is reluctant to join a team, but assures them that he'll be on call when they need help. The last holdout is J'onn, who is off by himself, looking out at the stars. When Superman goes to him, J'onn says he is the last surviving member of his race. Superman says he can relate, and assures J'onn that he doesn't have to be alone anymore.